Sick and tired of “Toner Low”, “Prepare New Toner Cartridge”, or even “Toner End of Life”?
Here’s a little hack for you people out there who have a Brother MFC-9840CDW and want to squeeze a few more copies out of your toner cartridges. Keep in mind, this can probably void your warranty so do it at your own risk.
This works on both standard, and high-yield toner cartridges.
There are two components to this: 1) The hardware aspect: There is a laser or something that shoots through a clear plastic seethrough circle (on both sides) of the toner. 2) The software aspect: The toner counter has to be reset.
Let’s get to it:
Hardware
Remove the toner tray and remove a single toner cartridge. On the either side of the toner cartridge you should see a clear plastic circle that should have traces of the color of the toner possibly on it. PLEASE NOTE: This is located on the side of the toner cartridge, don’t mess with anything else. Simply tear a small peice of paper and put some tape on the back, and slap it on the clear plastic. You only need to do this on one side per cartridge. This will fool the printer in to thinking that physically the toner has ink in it.
Software
I could be wrong, but the printer recognizes whether or not your using a standard or high-yield toner cartridges and keeps track of how many pages you print, and how much ink you use. You will need to reset this to clear the “Toner End of Life” message which stops you from printing. First you need to cover the toner holes as mentioned above in “Hardware”. Then you can proceed with this.
Open the front of the machine (as if you were wanting to get access to the toner cartridges). Now hit the “Clear/Back” button. This will open a secret menu on the front of the printer. Depending on whether you are using Standard to High Yield cartridges, you will want to use the menu to reset the counters for the applicable toner cartridges. There is 2 options (one for standard, and one for high yield) for each color of cartridge.
After this, you should be able to print again!
Worked beautifully. Thanks
this was a great solution and really worked. it is imperative to do both steps though! also note: the printer may come up with a yellow light/”replace parts_drum” message, but the printer will still print and work fine despite this message.
You ROCK! Worked great!
Fantastic – thank you!!
You are great I was billed $90 and the tech told me “no need a new printer Ill take this one give you a $50 discount on a new Printer!”
THANYOU Its working fine No new printer and Im not paying the bill
This is very good idea. I solved my problem with the software method. In my case, I installed a new toner and the machine says toner life end. I am now using the hardware method to block the holes.
This helped me tremendously. My printer said “Toner Life End” even after I put in a brand new black cartridge. I had done everything according to directions, cleaned scanner windows, made sure I was installing the cartridge properly and it still would not work. After covering the end of the cartridge and resetting the counter, I was back to printing again! THANK YOU!
I’ve been struggling with these MFC9840 low toner and end of life toner messages for some time. A 3-step process is needed to ‘fool’ the machine. Turn off the machine.
(1) Remove each toner cartridge and cover the little plastic sight hole with a small piece of duct tape or paper as Stephen suggested but do it with all cartridges. Covering the sight hole should prevent the low toner message from coming back on or tripping the ‘flag gear’ (see next step) so that it prevents the machine from printing..
(2) Reset the ‘flag gears’ on each toner to the full position. It’s very easy. Instructions are at http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/laser/39806.
(3) Turn the machine on. Once it warms up clear the low toner or end of life toner messages:
a) Open the toner access main door. A “door open” message will appear in the LCD.)
b) Press the “Clear/Back” button and the “Toner Reset Menu” will appear.
c) Use the up ^ Down > “Search” arrow buttons to scroll through and reset options for each of the printer’s toner cartridges. Code: B. = black; C. = cyan; M. = magenta and Y. = yellow
d) Reset to either low yield = S or High Yield – H
e) Using the number keypad, select option #1 (to reset each to the size you have installed.
f) Press the “Clear/Back” button to exit the reset of the menu.
(g) Close the toner access door.
At this point the machine should ‘think’ all of the toners are new. If you perform only ONE of the above steps (even if you do it with all 4 toners) the low toner and end of life messages will begin again prematurely.
Want to know how much toner is in your TN-110 or TN-115 cartridge? According to Brother service manuals, when your cartridge weighs 595g, it is “empty” – but NOTE that at 595g, there’s still 60g of toner inside! It is not possible to run your cartridge down to 0g without major print degradation. Depending upon your cartridge model and serial # (for starting weight values), here are some weights for you to use (in grams):
(TN-110, TN-130, TN-150) BK (2.5K) Y (1.5K) M, C (1.5K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 645g (±10g) 630g (±10g) 625g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 110g 95g 90g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g
(TN-115, TN-135, TN-155) BK (5K) Y (4K) M, C (4K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 695g (±10g) 675g (±10g) 670g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 160g 140g 135g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g
(TN-115, TN-135, TN-155) BK (5K) Y (4K) M (4K) C (4K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 685g (±10g) 681g (±10g) 653g (±10g) 670g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 150g 146g 118g 135g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g 60g
Notes from Brother:
– You can print about 500 pages with 10g toner. (A4 size, 5% coverage, continuous printing)
– Toner cartridge weight is without the package and the protective cover.
– Toner weight may vary ± 1g.
– The molding is different on each model so that the container weight is different.
Excellent, thank you so much.
Thanks it worked for some reason I put in a new toner cartridge and it continued to tell me that it was end of life reset and works fine now thanks again
pictures would of been better than a picture of your face
This solution works a treat! Fantastic suggestion – thanks a million.
Thank you so much for this post! And for it still being on the internet 10 years later!
Power to the people!
That worked for me.
Thanks